On the climb where Marco Pantani took a big solo victory in the 1998 Giro d'Italia, Fabio Aru (Astana) showed that Italy has another big climber coming up when he dropped all the stars to take a big solo victory and move into fourth in the overall standings. After repeated attacks, he finally got clear on his own while further back Nairo Quintana (Movistar) overcame a bad moment to finally drop Rigoberto Uran (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) who defended himself well by finishing fifth and save his race lead.

 

16 years ago Marco Pantani laid the foundations for his victory in the 1998 Giro d'Italia by taking a big win on the Plan di Montecampione climb. Today another Italian climber may have done the same when Fabio Aru proved that he is currently the strongest climber in this year's Giro.

 

Already yesterday the Italian proved his strength when he finished second of the race favourites, only surpassed by Nairo Quintana, and today he found himself in much better terrain. The long, regular Montecampione suited his pure climbing skills down to the ground and soon he proved that he is currently the strongest in this kind of stage.

 

The favourites seemed to be pretty equally matched and for a long time no one dared to launch an attack. As usual, it was Pierre Rolland (Europcar) that opened the game but race leader Rigoberto Uran played with the muscles and shut it down.

 

Again the race favourites started to look at each other, allowing more riders to rejoin from behind and when Rolland kicked again, no one responded. In a very strange scenario, all the biggest names came to a standstill and were passed by several riders, with Fabio Duarte making the most promising moves.

 

Aru made a few small attacks that indicated that he was the strongest rider while up ahead Rolland and Duarte had caught Philip Deignan (Sky) who had been the lone leader after an attack further down the climb. With a little more than 3km to go, Aru finally went all in and this time only Uran could match him.

 

The pair passed Deignan and soon caught Rolland and Duarte, with Uran showing that he was back at full strength. Quintana seemed to be at his limit but rediscovered some power to join the front quartet on his own.

 

Just as the junction was made, Aru kicked again and this time no one could match the strong Italian. Quintana survived another small crisis and started to work together with Rolland and Uran while Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) was a little further behind. Further back, Cadel Evans (BMC) was fighting to limit his losses, doing a lot of work in a small group that also included the likes of Wilco Kelderman (Belkin) and Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2r).

 

Quintana had now clearly found his legs and when he made another attack, Uran finally cracked. Duarte was also unable to match the speed but unlike the race leader, he managed to fight his way back to Quintana and Rolland.

 

Up ahead, however, there was no one stopping Aru who crossed the line in solo fashion, riding hard all the way to the line to maximize his time gains. Duarte used his explosive sprinting skills to take 2nd while Quintana and Rolland lost 23 seconds in 23rd and 4th.

 

Uran defended himself well and only lost 42 seconds to Aru while Majka lost another 15 seconds. Evans crossed the line in 10th, defending his 2nd place but seeing his deficit almost doubled from 032 to 1.03.

 

Uran heads into the final rest day in the lead but must be slightly concerned by what's ahead. When the racing resumed in two days time, the riders will do the brutal mountain stage that was cancelled one year ago, and takes them over the Gavia and Stevlio mountains before it finishes with an uphill finish in Valmartello. This is probably the hardest stage of the entire race and has the potential to create some enormous differences.

 

In memory of Pantani

After yesterday’s big mountain stage, the Giro d’Italia continued with another big day in the Alps as the riders headed over 225km from Valdengo to Plan di Montecampione. The stage was almost entirely flat but ended with a brutal 19km climb where Marco Pantani had won a stage of the 1998 Giro and the stage was held in memory of the Italian hero.

 

For the second day in a row, it was a beautiful sunny day in Northern Italy when 169 riders took off for their long, mostly flat run in the Po valley. Dylan Van Baarle (Garmin-Sharp) was the only non-starter, with the neo-pro following a pre-race plan of only doing two weeks of his debut grand tour.

 

Yesterday the break took off very early in the stage but today it required much harder work to join the early move. The riders got to the 15km mark before 9 riders were finally able to build a significant gap, with Maxime Bouet (Ag2r), Johan Le Bon (FDJ), Daniele Ratto (Cannondale) Andre Cardoso (Garmin), Damiano Cunego (Lampre), Adam Hansen (Lotto Belisol), Simon Geschke (Giant-Shimano), Luca Paolini (Katusha) and Fabio Felline (Trek) making up the group.

 

A hard battle

After 17km of racing, the octet was 20 seconds ahead and their hard battle continued. At the 27km mark, they still had not gained more than a minute but then the bunch finally allowed them to get a bit more freedom.

 

Jackson Rodriguez (Androni) and Pablo Torres (Colombia) set off in pursuit and a little later Enrico Barbin (Bardiani) also tried to bridge across. The trio combined forces and after 38km of racing, the junction was made.

 

The gap grows

At the 40km mark, the 12 escapees were 3.30 ahead and a little later their advantage was 5 minutes. Omega Pharma-Quick Step had taken control in the peloton after a very fast start that had seen the riders cover 46km in the first hour.

 

For a long time, the gap remained stable at around 4-5 minutes but at the 100km mark, the advantage had grown to 7 minutes. It even reached 8.20 before the peloton finally started rolling.

 

Neri Sottoli lead the chase

Surprisingly, it was the Neri Sottoli team that took on the responsibility to lead the chase. The Italian team had missed the move and wanted to prepare an attack from team captain Matteo Rabottini. Daniele Colli, Andrea Fedi, Mauro Finetto and Simone Ponzi combined forces with the OPQS trio of Alessandro Petacchi, Iljo Keisse and Julien Vermote to gradually reduce the gap.

 

As Ratto beat Barbin and Cunego in the intermediate sprint, the gap had come down to 7.15. With 60km to, Neri Sottoli and OPQS got some surprising assistance from Eugenio Alafaci (Trek). The American team had Felline in the break but with Cunego sitting in 19th on GC, Robert Kiserlovski's top 10 spot was under threat,

 

The gap comes down

The escapees briefly managed to react and stabilize the gap at around 6.40 but due to a brutal pace, the gap soon started to melt away. With 40km to go, ie was just 5.05 and as the battle for position also started to heat up, it came further down. OPQS soon stopped their work, leaving it to Neri Sottoli and Trek to set the pace.

 

With 23km to go, the gap was down to 3.05 and now the Neri Sottoli riders were swamped as the battle for position really intensified. Vermote and Francisco Ventoso both had stints on the front for OPQS and Movistar respectively but it was Ben Hermans who led the peloton onto the climb with an deficit of 1.45.

 

Arredondo takes off

In the front group, Hansen attacked right from the bottom. Initially, only Bouet and Rodriguez could follow him but soon the Australian was off on his own. In the peloton, Julian Arredondo (Trek) made an attack and he was quickly joined by Edoardo Zardini and Stefano Pirazzi (both Bardiani).

 

The escape had now splintered to pieces behind Hansen and while Pirazzi fell off the pace, Zardini and Arredondo started to passing remnants of the break. Barbin was able to take a massive turn for his teammate Zardini before dropping off.

 

Brambilla works hard

In the peloton, Matteo Montaguti had set the pace for Ag2r before Gianluca Brambilla took over for OPQS. Jose Herrada (Movistar) took a short turn but soon Brambilla went back to work.

 

Cardoso rejoined Hansen and a little later Torres and Felline also made the junction. Torres made an immediate attack that dropped Felline while Samuel Sanchez (BMC) had now taken over the pace-setting in the peloton.

 

Arredondo gets assistance from Felline

When Bouet was caught, he took a short turn on the front of the peloton. That spelled the end for Sanchez and soon it was again Brambilla doing the work for OPQS.

 

Felline briefly rejoined the leaders but Cardoso made an immediate counterattack that only Hansen could match. Instead, Zardini and Arredondo made it up to Torres and Felline and the latter took a massive turn on the front for his teammate Arredondo.

 

Arredondo and Cardoso form a front duo

That spelled the end for both Torres and Zardini and Felline and Arredondo quickly flew past Cardoso and Hansen. The latter didn't even try to follow while the former managed to get onto Arredondo's wheel and soon after it was down to just the Trek and Garmin climbers.

 

In the peloton, Brambilla was allowed to set the pace until the 9km mark when Deignan attacked. Moments later Michael Rogers (Tinkoff-Saxo) hit the front and his fierce pace gradually whittled down the main group, with Ivan Basso (Cannondale) and Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) among those to get dropped.

 

Rogers whittles down the group

Deignan was Arredondo and Zardini who were caught with 8km to go. Arredondo took a short turn on the front before Rogers again went back to work.

 

Rogers, Majka, Rolland, Quintana, Evans, Aru, Pzzovivo, Uran, Duarte, Kelderman, Morabito, Moreno, Kelderman, Pellizotti, Kiserlovski were now the only riders left in the main group but they kept losing groud to Deignan who was now 25 seconds ahead. Hesjedal and Basso managed to rejoin the main group but with 5km to go, Basso fell off the pace for good.

 

Rolland launches his attack

That's when Rolland launched his first attack but Uran and Evans were immediately on his wheel. Uran passed Rolland while Evans started to struggle but as the race leader slowed down, most of the favourites rejoined them.

 

Evans tried to maje a counterattack but it was the one launched by Rolland that was successful. As the favourites looked at each other Duarte, Pellizotti, Morabito and Kiserlovski all got clear.

 

Aru attacks

The latter two were soon caught and so Morabito started to work for Evans. Quintana and Aru both made small attacks while Rolland and later also Duarte caught Deignan.

 

With a little more than 3km to go, Aru attacked. Uran and Evans responded but only the race leader could match the young Italian.

 

Quintana gets back in contention

The pair quickly passed Pellizotti while Quintana, Mahja,, Evans and Pellizotti soon became their nearest chasers. Quintana recovered sufficiently to take off while Dignan got dropped from the front group.

 

Quintana managed to rejoin Uran and Aru shortly after that pair had caught the front duo but Aru made an immediate attack. This time no one could respond while Quintana survived a small crisis to rejoin Uran and Duarte.

 

Uran cracks

As Quintana upped the pace, Uran and Duarte cracked and only Rolland could keep up with the Movistar leader. Despite Quintana giving it his all, however, he failed to get closer to Aru.

 

Duarte and Uran briefly spoke to each other before Duarte attacked his compatriot and bridged the gap to Quintana and Duarte. Here the Movistar dug deep to maximize his time gains over Uran.

 

However, it was Aru who took the win while Duarte made a strong sprint to take second. Quintana crossed the line in 3rd ahead of Rolland while Uran defended himself well by taking 5th.